“Hey, John,” Lee said, as we came close, “are you all right?”
Grandfather did not lift his head. He made no move. He sat in a strange, slumping, boneless way, supported by the wall, his hands resting on the ground, his glasses missing, his eyes half open and gazing blindly at the earth between his sprawled legs. His hat lay on the grass nearby, where it had fallen.
We stood awkwardly in front of him. “Grandfather?” I said softly.
A fly buzzed near the old man’s face and a faint, queer odor hovered in the twilight. I squatted down, looking into his eyes. The eyes I looked at could not look back at me. I reached out to touch him but my hand stopped of its own volition before I made contact. I willed the hand to move forward but it seemed to be paralyzed. I was unable to make myself touch the old man’s body.
Lee took off his hat and brushed the sweat from his forehead. He dropped the hat, put his hand on my shoulders and drew me back. “Your grandfather’s dead, Billy.” He stepped past me, put his arms under the old man’s back and laid him gently out on the ground. He closed the eyelids, picked up the salt-rimed old hat and placed it on Grandfather’s chest.
“He’s been dead for hours, Billy.”
I shook my head unable to speak, and backed away a few steps, staring at the old man. No, I thought, but I could not say it.
“Too much for him,” Lee said quietly. “Seventy years—too much trouble. Hiking up this mountain last night, chopping down those trees—oh the goddamned old fool. …” And Lee, kneeling on the ground beside the body, lowered his head, put his hands over his face and began to cry. “Oh the old fool—why did he do this?—damned crazy stubborn old. …” His head sank lower, his back shuddered in an uncontrolled spasm of sobs.
The sight of Lee Mackie bent double with grief, the awful sound of his weeping, somehow seemed to me more shocking than the death of the old man. I backed off further and turned away, stared out over the hills, watched the shadow of the mountain advance like a wing over the brilliant golden light on the desert. I too wanted to weep, to wail like a child, but I couldn’t do it. I felt only a cold stillness in my nerves, a dark and nameless anger. I envied Lee and his tears, realizing at last that he was closer to the old man and loved him more than I ever had.
After a while Lee stopped crying, got up off his knees and came to me. He put his arm around my shoulders and together we looked out at the light on the plain. Far off to the northeast we could see the first tiny lights of Alamogordo appear, the flash of a beacon on the mountains beyond the city. “Getting dark, Billy. We better take him down.”
“Take him down?”
“We can’t leave him here. The wild beasts will tear him to pieces. We’ll have to carry him down to the jeep.”
“But wait—” I hesitated. “Why—let’s bury him here.”
“We can’t do that. We can’t do that, Billy. People will have to see him. The coroner, the undertaker. Your aunts will want to see him, other relatives. … You know how they do this thing now, Billy.”
I was silent.
“Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t bury him here. Six inches down we’d hit nothing but granite.”
“He wanted to be here, Lee.”
“I know that.” Lee said nothing for a few moments. “We shouldn’t do it,” he said.
“We could cover the body with rocks. Isn’t that what they used to do?”
“Rocks,” Lee muttered, “rocks.” He looked around. “But they could roll off the rocks, take him away.” He rubbed his jaw in thought, his eyes shone as he searched the field, the corrals and cabin, the edge of the woods, the lavender evening, seeking an idea. His glance went to the cabin. “Yes. Here’s what we’ll do, Billy. We’ll cremate the body. We’ll give him a fire, the biggest funeral fire you ever saw in your life. That’s it—we’ll put the old man inside, inside the cabin, on the bunk in there, and we’ll set fire to the cabin. Why not? We’ll launch him off to the stars like a Viking. He’d like that—his name’s Vogelin, isn’t it?”
And Lee went to work. Tenderly he picked up the old man’s body and carried it into the cabin. He laid him on the cot and dragged the cot to the center of the floor, shoving the table aside. But then he hesitated again and stopped. Thrusting his fingers through his tangled hair, he gaped at me in doubt:
“Billy—what are we doing? Do you realize what we’re doing? We can’t ever tell anyone about this.”
I stood inside the doorway, watching. “Why not?”
“It’s against the law. We could get into all kinds of trouble. They might even think—Look, Billy, you must never tell anybody about this. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Lee.”
“This is a secret between you and me. For the rest of our lives. Agreed?”
“I agree.”
“Okay. Now let’s take the kerosene out of this lamp—”
“Hold on there!” another voice spoke sharply. Marshal Burr stood in the doorway, frowning at us, wiping the sweat from his face. “What are you fellas doing here?” He looked at the body laid out on the cot, the closed eyes, the folded hands, the hat placed like a wreath on the old man’s chest. “Say, what’s—what’s going on here anyway?” He stared at Grandfather. “What happened?”
Lee said, “You can see. He died. Died of heartbreak. We found him here when we came up.”
The marshal came into the cabin, staring suspiciously at the body of the old man. He stepped beside him and picked up Grandfather’s wrist and held it. At the same time he bent down, taking off his hat, and put one ear to grandfather’s mouth. After a minute, satisfied, he replaced the hand as we had arranged it and turned toward us. “Very sorry this had to happen. Very sorry.” He looked sternly at Lee and slapped the hat back on “It’s too late to get anybody out here this evening. But I’ll notify the county sheriff and he’ll get the coroner and an undertaker out here first thing in the morning.” He looked about. “I suggest we close up this cabin tight to keep the varmints out. What was he doing here?”
Quietly I unscrewed the burner from the fuel bowl of the lamp.
“I guess he came back here to die,” Lee said.
“You knew he was here?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lee paused. “I didn’t want to see you and DeSalius and all your dirty-fingered military cops hounding this old man any more. Now get out of here before I lose my patience and kick your ribs in.”
Mr. Burr paled a bit and backed carefully to the doorway, his hands raised and alert, his eyes intent on Lee. I judged the time had come to pour the kerosene.
“You’re talking to a United States Marshal; you’re threatening an officer of the law.”
“I know it. Don’t irritate me.”
The pool of kerosene spread over the floor under the table and chairs, soaking into the aged, dried-out boards. I took matches from the box on the stove.
“What’s that boy doing?”
“We’re going to cremate the old man’s body,” Lee said. “I advise you to step outside if you want to watch. Strike a match, Billy.”
I struck a fistful of matches and dropped them on the spreading stain. Instantly the yellow flames sprang up, lapping at the furniture and reaching toward the wall.
“You two must be crazed,” the marshal said. “You can’t do this. It’s illegal. We don’t even have a death certificate.” He came in again, moving toward the body on the cot.
Lee picked up a chair and raised it over his head. “Don’t you touch him.”
The marshal stopped. I pulled ancient yellowed newspapers out of the cupboard shelves, spilling tin dishes to the floor, wadded the papers and threw them on the fire. They billowed up in flame, curling around the table legs.
“You can’t do this,” the marshal shouted. “It’s against the law.” Again he made a tentative move toward the old man.
“Stand back,” Lee hollered, “or I’ll brain you.”
The fire began to grow along t
he edge of the floor, eating at the warped and exposed board ends. A few flames flickered up the wall and touched the shelving. Smoke gathered under the rafters. I stepped toward the doorway.
“Get out of here, Billy,” Lee said. “I’ll hold him off.”
I edged around the marshal and reached the doorway. The light of the fire made the world outside seem dark as night already.
“I can’t let you do this!” the marshal shouted at Lee. “You can’t dispose of a body this way. And this cabin is now Government property. You’re wilfully destroying Goverment property.”
Lee smashed the chair in the table top. He kept one leg of the chair clutched in his right hand and pushed the other pieces onto the fire. Holding the chair leg like a club, he stood against Grandfather’s bier and faced the marshal. I could see the light of the flames in his eyes.
“I’m going to file charges against you,” Mr. Burr yelled. “You’re going to regret this.”
Lee grinned at him, holding the club aloft. The fire crept around him over the floor, licked at the mattress on the cot, grew bigger under the table and broken wood, filled the cabin with smoke.
The marshal backed toward the door as the heat became unpleasant. “This is going to hurt you,” he howled at Lee; “You’re going to have the record against you for the rest of your life.”
Lee grinned at the man again, squinting through the smoke. The marshal cursed, turned abruptly and marched out of the doorway, pushing me to one side. His eyes were red with fury and the sweat poured down his face. Lee came outside and stood beside me as we watched him stomping across the field, fading into the twilight.
The table collapsed inside, one leg eaten away, and the fire rose up with added vigor. We faced the cabin, staring at the flames, and waited. Waited till the whole interior of the cabin became a seething inferno moaning like the wind, and bits and pieces and sections of the roof began to fall in. Grandfather on his bunk disappeared within the fire, wrapped from head to foot in flame, and cell by cell, atom by atom, he rejoined the elements of earth and sky.
The fire now seemed the brightest thing in the world as evening covered the mountains and desert and the first few stars emerged from the sky. Far away to the northeast and to the south the light of Alamogordo and El Paso twinkled like tiny beds of jewels in the velvet dark. If anyone out there cared to look, he’d see our funeral bonfire flickering like a signal, like an alarm, high on the side of the mountain of thieves.
The fire burst through the roof and streamed around the walls of the cabin, flaring wild and magnificent in the darkness, blazing with angry heat. Lee and I stepped back, our faces hot. He squeezed my shoulder and smiled at me, that foolish and generous smile, his face grimy with dust, sweat and smoke.
“The old man would like this, Billy. He’d approve of this.”
The walls crackled and crashed, forcing us still further back. We stared in awe as the fire achieved the climax of its energy and towered above the cabin, rolling up and up in a pillar of smoke and sparks and flames that illuminated for one moment of splendor the entire height of the granite cliffs beyond the rim.
Far above on the mountainside, posed on his lookout point, troubled by the fire, the lion screamed.
Edward Abbey, Fire on the Mountain
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